Women in positions of power in the public sphere is still a relatively new, if slowly progressing sight. It’s become now conventional wisdom that 2008 was a year when women broke barriers in politics. Hillary Clinton was a serious contender to win her party’s nomination, and Sarah Palin became the first woman to be nominated as vice presidential candidate by the Republican Party. Yet, despite this progress, and the fact that Nancy Pelosi became the first female Speaker of the House in 2007, the percentage of female representation in Washington D.C continues to grow at a glacial pace—increasing just 1 percent over 2006, to a total of 17 percent. Washington isn’t the only place where equal representation is at a stalemate.

By the end of 2008, 12 women will have worked as CEOs of Fortune 500 companies. In Hollywood in 2007, women made up only 6 percent of directors and together “comprised 15 percent of all directors, executive producers, producers, writers, cinematographers, and editors working on the top 250 domestic grossing films” (Lauzen 1). Taking all this into consideration it is important to analyze the role the media plays in reinforcing prevalent prejudices against women, important to ask why women is find it difficult to break through to top spots in government and elsewhere, and to what extent do our biases, acquired by us by our socialization (like watching or reading the news), contribute to the problem. In June 2008, after Hillary Clinton lost the nomination, Katie Couric of CBS News made the following statement at the end of one of her shows:

“But like her or not, one of the great lessons of that campaign is the continued and accepted role of sexism in American life, particularly in the media. Many women have made the point that if Senator Obama had to confront the racist equivalent of an ‘Iron my shirt’ poster at campaign rallies or a Hillary nutcracker sold at airports or mainstream pundits saying they instinctively cross their legs at the mention of her name, the outrage would not be a footnote, it would be front page news. It isn’t just Hillary Clinton who needs to learn a lesson from this primary season; it’s all the people who cross the line and all the women and men who let them get away with it.”

Soon after the general election ended, and Barack Obama was elected president, an article published in New York magazine argued that the past election had actually reinforced prevalent gender stereotypes: the proverbial dichotomy of the “bitch” and the “ditz”–a dichotomy arguably codified in the media’s coverage of these two women, is prime example of what Couric described as “acceptable” sexism in the media.

Note and disclosure

There are numerous caveats to my analysis. One, it would be impossible to separate Hillary Clinton’s gender from the fact that she’s one-half of the Clintons, a political family that’s been on the media’s radar for nearly two decades. Similarly, separating Sarah Palin’s gender from the fact that she’s a conservative Republican would be problematic and somewhat of a distortion. Rather, I will try to focus more on the media’s coverage of these two women candidates and how the way they were covered contributes to the problem. Nonetheless, I neither make no insinuation that the media is solely responsible for each woman’s failure to win their respective elections, or that ALL of their media coverage was sexist—but rather a contributing factor. The “media” is a collective term for cable-new channels who generate 24-hour news cycles, to respected newspapers and blogs that bounce narratives off each other. The fact that I only focus on Sarah Palin in the general election isn’t an implication that Barack Obama or John McCain didn’t encounter discrimination because of race or age respectively.
Finally, in the Democratic primaries, I was a supporter of Hillary Clinton.

Part one: Hillary Clinton

“That I am a national figure because I was the first person in 192 years to be at once a congressman, black and a woman proves, I think, that our society is not yet either just or free.” – Shirley Chisholm, first black woman elected to Congress in 1968

From the moment Hillary Clinton announced on her website that she was forming a committee to run for president, her prominent status among the other presidential contenders meant that in the media, she had a target painted on her back. Out of all the candidates that would eventually announce their respective campaigns, among them John Edwards who had been the vice presidential nominee the previous presidential election, Hillary was the one “dubbed” a front-runner based on the national polling the media conducted. The coverage Hillary Clinton received as “front-runner” in the year between making her candidacy official in January 2007 and the Iowa caucus on January 3, 2008 and the one she received once the primaries actually started was different outwardly in tone but nevertheless had the same effect of being dismissive at best, and seriously offensive at worst. In fact, by March 2007, barely two months into the campaign and with the first primary election still some nine months away, the bias in the media had reached a point where the National Organization for Women released an article detailing some of the instances they found offensive. Chris Matthews of MSNBC, who would become a repeat offender to the point of issuing an on-air apology, was a large part of the article:

“Chris Matthews, host of MSNBC’s talk show Hardball, has become notorious for his sexist remarks about Clinton. On Dec. 19, 2006, he charged that she was being coy about her political ambitions, comparing her to ‘a stripteaser saying she’s flattered by the attention,’ and on two separate occasions—Jan. 25 and 26, 2007, he referred to her as an ‘uppity woman.’ In the aftermath of the Congressional election on Nov. 8, 2006, he discussed her delivery of a ‘campaign barn burner speech,’ which, he suggested was ‘harder to give for a woman,’ because it can ‘grate on some men when they listen to it, [like] fingers on a blackboard.’ Not content to level his sexist criticism on Clinton alone, he continued his rant, wondering how newly elected Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi could ‘do the good fight against the president…without screaming? How does she do it without becoming grating?’ “

Other media narratives that stand out was coverage of Hillary’s appearance—namely a column by the Washington Post that reported on her showing cleavage in a speech she made in the Senate floor. Attention was also paid to Hillary’s laugh, or “cackle” as some of her detractors put it. But it was in the immediate run-up to and aftermath of the Iowa caucus (but before the New Hampshire primary), where Hillary finished in third place that some of the language became more nakedly biased to the point where it became a media frenzy when seemingly teared up when answering a New Hampshire voter’s question. Rebecca Traister of Salonopined “For many of these pundits, especially those who pander to a mostly white male audience, a nearly pornographic investment in Clinton’s demise is nothing new.”

By the time Hillary delivered her concession speech on June 7, 2008, some of the media’s coverage had turned from silly and sexist to borderline violent and misogynistic. Some cartoonists took to drawing Hillary as a slain beast or other variations. Worse, various commentators like NPR’s political editor Ken Rudin and even elected officials like Tennessee congressman Rep. Steve Cohen (D) likened her to the psychotic villain of the film Fatal Attraction. Though both men later issued apologies, the comparison was an especially stinging one since Fatal Attraction is considered by many feminists to be an explicitly anti-feminist film. The media’s tone had been so noxious that the Gloria Steinem-founded Women’s Media Center created a video (above) called “Sexism sells—but we’re not buying it” which compiled some of the highlights of sexism in the media coverage of Hillary Clinton. Steinem also appeared on CNN and echoed what she had said about women candidates at the beginning of the primary in a New York Times op-ed saying, “This country can no longer afford to choose our leaders from a talent pool limited by sex, race, money, powerful fathers and paper degrees. It’s time to take equal pride in breaking all the barriers.”

On CNN she pointed out:

“Clearly part of the problem is the misogyny in the culture at large and especially in the media. I mean, you know, no candidate in history has been asked to step down by the media. She was. The average time that it takes for a loser to endorse a winner in this situation is four months. Four months. She did it in four days, and look how she was criticized, you know, for not doing it the very same night. It’s outrageous.”

Steinem was referencing articles like Jonathan Alter’s of Newsweek, who in late February wrote a column arguing that it would be best for Hillary if she stepped out of the race then. (Hillary went on to win nine out of the next 16 contests.) Steinem also seemed to be referencing the uproar in the media when Hillary didn’t endorse Obama on June 3, the night most media organizations reported that Obama had amassed the amount of delegates needed to secure the nomination.

Part two: Sarah Palin

I say this with all due respect to Hillary Clinton…but when I hear a statement like that coming from a woman candidate with any kind of perceived whine about that excess criticism or you know maybe a sharper microscope put on her, I think you know that doesn’t do us any good—women in politics, women in general wanting to progress this country. -Governor Sarah Palin (R-Alaska) in March 2008

Seemingly out of nowhere, Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain picked Alaska Governor Sarah Palin to be his vice presidential nominee. Sarah Palin bursting onto the political scene was arguably a chance for the media to report fairly and accurately on virtually unknown candidate turned vice presidential nominee. Instead, like Steinem argued, sexist narratives seemed to spread virally from within the media. Within days of her announcement, liberal talk show host Ed Schutlz commented to his listeners that Palin had set off a “bimbo alert” and blogs like Daily Kos circulated rumors that Palin’s newborn son Trig, born with Down syndrome, was allegedly her daughter Bristol’s son, while blogs like the Huffington Post took to publicizing images of Palin (under the headline “Former Beauty Queen, Future VP?”) in a swim suit that alluded to her background as a participant in beauty pageants to make the suggestion that she wasn’t qualified to be vice president—a variation of Ed Schultz’s “bimbo alert” crack. Even people who were outwardly supportive of Palin, like CNBC’s Donny Deutsch, were so obssesive over her looks, that they came across as sexist, ignorant, and patronizing all at the same time:

Complicating matters, women organizations who had stood up for Hillary Clinton during the primaries, including Gloria Steinem herself, now for the most part disavowed Palin. The National Organization for Women (NOW) put out a statement that read in part, “Gov. Palin may be the second woman vice-presidential candidate on a major party ticket, but she is not the right woman. Sadly, she is a woman who opposes women’s rights, just like John McCain.” WomenCount was seemingly the only organization to defend Palin against the sexist media treatment Palin was receiving. WomenCount, a politcal organization formed by Hillary Clinton supporters in the waning days primaries to at first to advocate for Hillary Clinton’s candidacy and later to promote and support Democratic women candidates across the country, sent an email to supporters that questioned the media’s immediate criticism of Palin’s nomination, among them John Roberts of CNN who said, “Palin would not be able to focus on her job given her family distractions,” and columnist Sally Quinn of the Washington Post who wrote, “Of course, women can be good mothers and have careers at the same time. I’ve done both. Other women in public office have children…but…a mother’s role is different from a father’s,” which implies that unlike fathers, mothers ought to have more of a responsibility as a parent and by accepting the vice presidential nomination, Palin was being an irresponsible mother by placing her career ahead of her child.
WomenCount’s email statement read in part:

“The question came not just from members of the media but also from voters around the country who wrote in to news organizations and on blogs. The obvious retort is whether anyone would ask the same question of the father of a four-month-old with Down Syndrome and a pregnant teenager. We think not.”

Unlike Gloria Steinem, who would by and large sidestep the issue of the biased media coverage against Palin in a Los Angeles Times op-ed, WomenCount addressed the seeming paradox of progressive feminists standing up for Palin:

“Throughout the weekend, we have been asked about WomenCount’s views on Sarah Palin as the Republican nominee. It is important to distinguish between the broader issue of sexism and the ideology of an individual. WomenCount was born of the passion its founders had for Hillary Clinton’s clear view of social issues and progressive values. We cannot pretend that Governor Palin meets any standard of progressive politics or social values.
But regardless of the candidates’ ideology, we will work to stamp out sexism when we see it on the campaign trail. To paraphrase the words of one blogger who said it best over the weekend: We will defend Sarah Palin against misogynist smears not because we like her or support her, but because that’s how feminism works.”

Needless to say, even though Palin slammed the media in her acceptance speech at the GOP convention in Minneapolis-St. Paul, her subsequent stumbles in the media may have had the effect of silencing any or all allies she may have had across the aisle. Ironically, it was Palin’s interview with Katie Couric, who earlier in the year had criticized sexism in the media, that may have been the most damaging to Palin and her public image. Maybe because of the fact that she had spoken out against sexism in the media, Couric was the right person with the right sensibilities to interview Palin: Couric strayed from the superficial questions that plagued Hillary, like questions about her image or “likability,” instead Couric asked sensible questions like, “When it comes to establishing your worldview, I was curious, what newspapers and magazines did you regularly read before you were tapped for this to stay informed and to understand the world?“ or “What other Supreme Court decisions do you disagree with?”—Arguably easy questions that utterly stumped Palin as shown by her cringe-worthy responses and showed her to be, perhaps not the candidate best suited to be the next vice president. Unfortunately, like New York magazine’s Amanda Fortini said, Palin’s apparent lack of intellectual curiosity reinforced a stereotype as women as a “ditz.” Even in our own class, Palin was dismissed with terms such as “VPILF,” which reduced and belittled Palin to her looks.

The “Palin is a ditz” media narrative continued, unfortunately, all the way from shortly before the election, when news broke that the Republican National Committee had spent $150,000 on Palin’s make-up and wardrobe to after the election was over, when anonymous McCain staffers told the media that in her debate prep against Joe Biden, Palin had allegedly claimed to not know that Africa was a continent and not a country, and also that she reportedly didn’t know the signing members of NAFTA. Geraldine Ferraro, who was the first woman to be nominated for vice president in 1984, appeared on Fox News shortly before the election to talk about the similarities (and differences) between how she was treated and how Palin was being treated by the media:

Said and Done

In the end, I don’t think, like I said before, that the media was the only reason Hillary and Sarah lost in their elections. But, as some of the clips show, there is an accepted and pervasive bias against women that slows the progress of women everywhere. Even today, I’m still not sure why Sarah Palin’s preparedness was questioned from day one on the basis that she had barely served two years in her term as governor, in way that Barack Obama’s preparedness arguably wasn’t questioned when he announced his candidacy, since at that time he had also barely served two years in his term as senator. As it turned out, there was a mountain of difference between Obama and Palin’s preparedness, as shown by their respective bodies of knowledge, but still, I would have liked for the media to have made more of an issue of Obama’s experience, if indeed experience was a litmus test of sorts against which Palin did not measure up.

I would also hope that in the future, women candidates are respected more and held to the same standard that every other candidate is—a woman shouldn’t have to sound tougher just because she’s a woman. Additionally, we shouldn’t be too dismissive of women who point out the problems the media sometimes has in reporting about women. As the clip above shows, an observation Katie Couric made both in her CBS newscast and in her acceptance of an award at a journalist’s association, earned her the top spot on Keith Olbermann’s “Worst Persons in the World.” It troubles me that even within the ideological circles we sometimes wrap ourselves in, there’s still an outward prejudice against women—Olbermann’s show is praised by liberal blogs like Daily Kos, where he is a contributor, and Huffington Post. Even with all the progress Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin have made toward the acceptance in the public sphere of a woman running for the top positions in government, that “highest and hardest glass ceiling” remainsl unbroken. As we continue to progress, hopefully we’ll have learned lessons from what each woman’s campaign and not allow sexism to control–in any way–media coverage of other women candidates.

It’s now officially been a week since word leaked from the less-than leak-proof Obama transition team that Sen. Hillary Clinton is the frontrunner for the Secretary of State position in the Obama administration. The flurry of media reports since have been spotty, at best—some alleging she’s already accepted and others hinting she may actually decline. Whatever the truth may actually be—I was, like probably everybody else, surprised by this move by Obama—I really think that regardless of his “change” message during the past two years of his campaign, he’s now as president-elect moving on to put together the most competent administration in ages, certainly the best in the last decade.

Hillary as secretary of state? I have two positions:

First, and foremost, naturally, I think Hillary would an extraordinary Secretary of State, and because of her stature coming off the primaries, where she campaigned on her preparedness and knowledge of international affairs, she would be in a better position than all of the other names floating around to fill the shoes of the nation’s top diplomat, to negotiate—play hard ball—and go toe-to-toe with the world’s leaders; and stepping in, she’d have more clout on the international stage as a recognized world leader than Madeleine Albright, Colin Powell, or Condoleezza Rice had when they were appointed. Plus, she’s already had years of diplomatic experience as a backdoor diplomat as First Lady and in diplomatic missions as a U.S. Senator. Also, Hillary’s ascension to the top post in the Obama cabinet would be the just deserts to all the Obama-supporting Hillary-bashers who publicly trashed Hillary and her supporters during the primaries. People like Chris Matthews (who’s still trashing her). People like Keith Olbermann. People like all the left-wingers at blogs like the Daily Kos, who during the primaries, were the most toxic, cannibalistic progressives around. Now, these people have to either defend Hillary or question the infallible judgment of their chosen one. (I love it.) Roil, roil, roil indeed.

But, alas, as much as I think Hillary would be a great addition to the Obama administration, personally, I don’t want her to accept the job. I think she’s a national leader in her own right—one with 18 million votes behind her—with a platform for healthcare, children, women, the working class, and minorities; I think she would be giving up too much. Yet, it saddens and disappoints me to hear that she’s being road-blocked in the Senate and not being allowed to so much as share credit with Ted Kennedy (although that may be changing). A post in the Obama administration would instantly elevate her national stature, but at the cost of giving up a lot of the issues that are near and dear to her heart, not to mention her secure Senate seat, and potential future in the Democratic party and governing majority Democratic-controlled Senate. Finally, to put it bluntly, I don’t want her to be reduced to an Obama minion—one with symbolic, rock star wattage, but no real voice. I don’t want her to get blamed for any faux pas, or false starts of the Obama administration or to become a scapegoat for the activist left when or if the Obama administration loses its luster. I think she should stay in the Senate, and, in time, carve her own piece of history there—she’s already deeply admired by her colleagues, Republicans and Democrats, she doesn’t need this job, frankly. I hope Hillary says, “Thanks, but no thanks.”

Will it happen again? Two times now, I’ve anticipated, no expected the voters in the 4th congressional district to give hate-monger Marilyn Musgrave the boot—and twice I’ve been disappointed that she’s been able to convince voters she’s worthy enough to keep her gerry-mandered seat.

Maybe gerry-mandered isn’t the word, since the CD-4 has been traditionally held by a Republican for a very long time. Before Musgrave, a certain person named Bob Schaffer held that seat, and before him, it was Wayne Allard, and before Allard, the seat has held by none other than former CU president himself, Hank Brown. The seat was redrawn after the 2000 census, and parts of Arapahoe and Adams counties were cut out, making ultra-conservative Weld county that most powerful county in that district.

Stan Matsunaka couldn’t unseat Musgrave in 2004 in a race that, surprise, turned really ugly, really fast. The most memorable part of that campaign, at least for me, was the third-party ad that showed a Musgrave doppelganger pick-pocketing soldiers in the frontlines. The ad was supposed to illustrate how Musgrave had voted against the troops by voting against giving them better armor. Instead, the ad made national headlines for the degree of callousness of the ad, and Musgrave squeaked out a six-percentage point victory.

Angie Paccione didn’t fare any better in what otherwise was the Democratic tsunami of 2006. Again, the race turned ugly really quick with Musgrave doing what she does best: demonizing her challengers. In the homestretch of the campaign, Musgrave cut ads making Paccione look like a shady criminal. Musgrave squeaked out another slim victory.

I’m hoping against hope that 2008 is the year that Musgrave finally gets kicked out of Congress. In her 2004 race, Musgrave lamented that she had a “bull’s eye” on her back for being the chief sponsor of the Federal Marriage Amendment—a proposal that would’ve enshrined discrimination in the Constitution for the first time since the three-fifths compromise—and “pleaded” with donors to help her fight the “homosexual agenda.”

This time, I think (hope) Betsy Markey can pull it off. A poll in August had Markey with a seven-point lead over Musgrave. No doubt the race has tightened since then, but I was surprised to hear last week that the Republican Congressional Campaign Committee had pulled out ad buys it had reserved to protect Musgrave. Meanwhile, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is unusually cash-flush in this decidedly bad year for Republicans, and has been helping Markey with ads:

Throughout the race, Musgrave has resorted to her old, one-tick pony (here), and notice the semantic difference between “approve” and “authorize”:

But, this time, Markey didn’t let up, and fought back, with out lowering to Musgrave’s standards:

In the end, in less than 24 hours actually, we should know whether or not Musgrave can pull out another win, or if Markey proves that third time’s the charm.

In the discussion on Thursday, a few people disagreed that the media was biased in ways that favored Obama and disadvantaged McCain. Like I said in my post a last week, I still think the media, for the most part, is biased. Yes, Fox News is the number one cable news network, but I would argue two things: 1) Fox News isn’t shamelessly shilling for McCain as MSNBC or (a good chunk of) CNN is for Obama, and 2) the bias doesn’t apply only to cable news, I think its in newspapers like USA Today and the New York Times and even on Facebook, where its co-founder endorsed, helped, and now works for Obama. People who get the news from non-traditional sources are also subjected to biased information.

In the last few weeks there’s was the unusual grilling of McCain by the hosts of The View, and I find it interesting that Obama received much hospitable treatment from the ladies:

I don’t think they would’ve been as hostile with Obama about his own questionable ads. And just this week, David Letterman made fun of McCain using unaired footage from a taped interview with Katie Couric.

People who don’t pay much attention to cable news but do watch shows like The View or Letterman, are obviously not going to get a fair view of McCain.

Just to elaborate on how the media has been critical of Obama, at least in this election cycle:

I know this is compiled by the McCain camp, but I think it’s a fair representation (except for one or two clips) of how the media has treated Obama ever since the day he won the Iowa caucuses. The two SNL sketches skewering moderator’s behavior at the Democratic debates during the primaries also hit the same point.

With the stakes high, and polls showing Barack Obama and John McCain in a dead heat, it was expected that each would make a “safe” VP choice, one that wouldn’t attract too much attention and wouldn’t detract too much from each campaign’s carefully crafted message. Barack Obama delivered, John McCain didn’t.

Whatever Obama campaign manager David Plouffe may have promised supporters, those who found out via text message were probably the last ones to find out who would be Obama’s VP nominee, as word leaked early in the evening (unofficially, earlier that week) that it would be Joe Biden. McCain played it wiser, sending mixed signals, and using Mitt Romney and Tim Pawlenty as smokescreens to keep his VP choice secret until the big reveal. And it paid off.

At first, those McCain ads featuring Hillary Clinton prominently after the Biden announcement didn’t make sense, but now it’s obvious that the McCain camp was priming the pump for his VP pick—all the while more surprising that McCain’s VP pick was shocking to most. While I don’t expect any self-respecting Democrat will vote for McCain solely because of Sarah Palin, McCain certainly made it rain on Obama’s parade by throwing the Obama camp off message—hitting Palin unusually hard for her lack of, get this, experience.
The media, of course, has been spinning it the other way—that McCain has undercut his own message of experience by tapping a newbie governor from a small state—while not mentioning how odd it is of the Obama camp (the “high road” camp) to demand a more lengthy resume from a candidate, one that has at least some governing experience, no less; and to resort to cheap, coded language to attack McCain while attacking Palin: a “heartbeat” away from the presidency?

At Invesco, it was clear that Obama sought to expand the Democratic “base”; before he spoke, a woman spoke about how the economic downturn had turned her life into a “nightmare,” and at the end of her speech, she pointedly remarked for whom she had voted for president her entire life: “Nixon, Reagan, Bush, Bush,” the woman said. Clearly, Obama was making a play to peel off Republican-leaning women away from McCain, something that may have helped him win states like Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. But now, the Palin pick has thrown a wrench into that, and the Obama camp may wind up using Hillary more than they would have wanted to, deploying her to states like Ohio and Pennsylvania to diminish any gains Palin may make with moderate/conservative women that voted for Hillary. (Or maybenot.)

The Palin pick has energized the right-wing base that had deserted McCain since the primaries; the GOP headed toward their Convention a more unified party than even the Democrats, and by the time both Conventions were over, the dynamics of the race changed with John McCain staying on the offensive ever since. (And I do mean offensive.)

Latest polls reportedly have independents and White womenbreaking for McCain—Obama had an 8-point lead with White women just before the DNC. The Democrats certainly aren’t in the position they imagined themselves to be in when Obama clinched the nomination—and the race has tightened even further, with McCain making significant inroads—they’re frustrated and going off message.
Now, more than two weeks into the general election homestretch, Obama needs to heed Karl Rove’s advice (!) and take the heat off Palin, which might reinvigorate lukewarm supporters like me about his chances of winning in November.